About

$50,251

pledged of $30,000 goal

660

backers

My Story

I'm a master's student at Texas A&M University, and I've been working with microcontrollers and physical computing for a few years now. I've built several interesting projects, many of which you can find on my portfolio, including one you may have seen on TV.

Like many of you, I got started with an Arduino, but I found myself limited by the inflexibility of the platform: too little bandwidth over the UART, too few analog inputs, too few digital outputs, etc.

That's why I decided to create the freeSoC, an open hardware platform for the best microcontroller in the world: Cypress Semiconductor's PSoC 5. I hope this project will enable makers around the world to explore the world of possibilities enabled by the PSoC microcontroller. Never let your tools get in the way of your imagination again.

Why Kickstarter?

We're kickstarting this project to raise funds for the first big production run of these boards. We've already had several small prototype runs, and we're currently developing a test harness for functional verification after production. Your money will help support this cause, and also help build the freeSoC community at http://freesoc.net.

Pick Your Poison

freeSoC

freeSoC offers 60 general purpose I/O pins, 8 special I/O pins, and a direct USB connection to the PSoC 5 microcontroller on board. It has an Arduino compatible pinout, as well as five 10-pin expansion headers, each breaking out 8 GPIO, power, and ground.

freeSoC Mini

freeSoC Mini offers 24 general purpose I/O pins and 8 special I/O pins. It's dimensioned exactly to fit in 40-pin DIP sockets, and can act as a drop-in replacement for an 8051 microcontroller. The Mini will ship with 2 pairs of 20-pin machine pin headers, which you can install yourself, or choose to leave off. (Note: freeSoC Mini does NOT have a direct USB connection to PSoC, just a programer)

Common Features

Both boards feature the top-of-the-line Cypress CY8C5568 PSoC Microcontroller (specs listed below), and have a built in programmer that works directly with PSoC Creator for both programming and in-circuit debugging.

Break Free from Inferior Microcontrollers

Never again find yourself short on analog I/O, or bouncing off the limits of UART over USB. freeSoC enables you to focus on your design, instead of the limitations of your microcontroller.

Design your Hardware, in Software

PSoC Creator, the free IDE for freeSoC enables you to build your hardware functionality graphically, without grabbing any hookup wire. Need a 16 channel multiplexer? Just drag and drop. Need a couple op-amps to buffer that high-impedance signal? Drag and drop. Want to put USB in your design? Drag and drop.

Any Pin, Any Purpose

With freeSoC, you can use any GPIO pin for any function. Need 16 SPI controllers? No Problem. 24 PWMs? freeSoC has you covered. How many other microcontrollers on the market can act as a 32 channel analog multiplexer?

Debug like a Pro

Using the free PSoC Creator software, you can easily debug your designs directly from your computer. Just like visual studio, or any other modern IDE, you can set breakpoints, break conditions, watched variables, and more!

Made by Hobbyists, Made for Hobbyists

Unlike the Cypress Semiconductor PSoC development kits, freeSoC is geared around the needs of hobbyists. With an Arduino compatible pinout and five 10-pin expansion ports, freeSoC has the flexibility you need.

Open Hardware

freeSoC's board layouts and schematics are released under a CC-BY-SA license. Download them here and create your own design today!

Free Software

Download PSoC Creator today! It's completely free, and you can get it now! Don't wait til your freeSoC board arrives to begin designing, just download the software, play around with it for a few minutes, and you'll be hooked.

Pin Diagram

Here's a pin diagram, as requested by several of the backers. All General Purpose I/O Pins can be used for any purpose. Special I/O are digital only, but allow for higher current drive. Both boards have a USB programmer, but only the freeSoC allows you to use Full-Speed USB communication in your design.

Update!

Since the project launched, and based on feedback from our backers, we've added mounting holes, and a 2mm JST power port (useful for LiPo batteries, or DC adapters using a barrel jack converter).

We've also upgraded the regulator to a National/TI LP2989, which will accept input voltages up to 16V, and has an unbelievably-fantastically-low output noise of 18uV RMS. This is nearly 3 orders of magnitude better than most linear regulators, and will ensure you can make full use of PSoC's precision analog components.

A graphically configurable external memory interface allows you to expand the storage of your device with up to 1GB of external memory, directly mapped in the 4GB address space of the Cortex M3.

Analog

Dual SAR ADCs

Dual 12-bit, 700ksps SAR ADCs offer unparalleled speed in conversion, even for the most demanding applications

Delta Sigma ADC

The onboard Delta Sigma ADC can be used at any resolution from 20 bits to 8 bits. At 20 bits of resolution, it offers 180 sps, useful for thermocouples or strain gauges. At 16 bits, it will convert at 48000 sps, perfect for audio applications. At 8 bits, it will convert at 384ksps, almost equaling the SAR ADC in conversion speed.

Quad 8-bit DACs

Quad 5.5Msps IDACs allow for extremely fast, extremely precise digital to analog conversion. IDACs can be configured as current sources or current sinks. Alternatively, you can configure them as voltage DACs, for a speed of 1Msps on each DAC.

Quad Comparators

Four built in comparators can be routed to any analog component.

Quad Rail-to-Rail OpAmps

Four OpAmps, spec'd at 3MHz GBW and 10mA drive, can be used to buffer any incoming analog signal, or you can directly connect them to external components in your design. OpAmp outputs can be used through dedicated pins for full current capability, or routed to any internal signal or external pin on the freeSoC.

CapSense

Capacitive Sensing on all GPIO, Sliders, Buttons, and more. Cypress in a leader in capacitive sensing technology, and provides a built in auto-configuration utility, so you can easily implement your capacitive sensing design without the headache of manually configuring the sensitivity.

Quad Multifunction Analog Blocks

These multifunction analog blocks can be configured as programmable gain amplifier, transimpedance amplifier, or for sample and hold. Need a precision current measurement from your photodiode? Just plug it straight into freeSoC, run it through a transimpedance amplifier, pump up the gain with a PGA, and use your delta-sigma ADC for a 20-bit conversion.

Advanced I/O Routing Network

Route any analog peripheral to any GPIO pin on freeSoC. Use your freeSoC as a 32 channel analog multiplexer. Or a 16-channel differential mux. Inputs and outputs both can be routed to any GPIO on the PSoC.

Digital

24 PLD based Universal Digital Blocks (UDBs)

These are the heart of freeSoC's digital flexibility. Can be configured graphically with built in components like PWM, SPI, I2C, LIN, CAN, SPDIF, I2S, Quadrature Decoders, Counters, CRC, and standard digital logic gates.

OR, roll your own components with verilog, tie them into your block diagram like any other component, and get hardware-accelerated speed for your custom digital application. It's like having a built-in FPGA without all the hassle of having an FPGA.

Full Speed USB

A full speed USB transceiver is built in to freeSoC. Graphically configure your USB endpoint and device descriptors. PSoC Creator has built in support for Audio Descriptors, HID, MIDI, UART, and more. Don't waste your time reading the USB spec, just drag and drop and you're done. freeSoC has a built in 24MHz oscillator for full USB compliance.

Built-in Timer, PWM, and Counter Components

In addition to the flexible UDBs, freeSoC has four dedicated 16-bit counter/timer blocks, and four dedicated 16-bit PWM blocks. These can be used without using any of the UDB blocks, and can also be routed to any pin on the freeSoC.

Real-time Clock

The freeSoC includes a real-time clock crystal running at 32.768kHz. Use this with the built-in RTC component in PSoC Creator to instantly create a digital clock, with built-in methods for generating year/month/day/hour/minute/second data.

DMA

PSoC Creator lets you configure DMA channels graphically. You can use any digital signal as a trigger for a DMA request, and totally bypass the CPU bottleneck for ultra-high bandwidth applications.

Special I/O

Each board has 8 special I/O pins that can be used for high-current drive applications.

Miscellaneous

All boards are RoHS compliant.

We expect to ship boards approximately one to two months after funds clear.

Risks and challenges

We have been through 3 iterations of the PCB design, and are already manufacturing the first run of freeSoC boards through our manufacturer in low volumes.

The only risky thing about this project is the potential yield rate of production boards. We are countering this risk by putting together a test harness for each board that will allow the manufacturer to run a quick functional test on the boards, and fix any that have issues, before we have them shipped to us.

I have done PCB design and low-volume manufacturing of prototype boards for a number of years now. I recently incorporated a functional testing step into our manufacturing process with ZeroTouch, and I'm very comfortable designing effective test harnesses and procedures.